The Bitterest Taste
by Xx starlight-moon xX
Summary: A collection of drabbles - one for each of the five senses - centred around Bellatrix.


**A / N : The idea has been swiped from Mesteria's "Senses" challenge (again) so thanks go deservedly to her. Fanfic formatting also refuses to underline the word "Touch", presumably because it hates me and wants to watch my brain explode after the fiftieth failed attempt. **

**Reviews might help piece it back together though. :) **

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><p>"<em>There is love in your body but you can't get it out, it gets stuck in your head, won't come out of your mouth<em>

_Sticks to your tongue and it shows in your face, that the sweetest of words have the bitterest taste." _

_- **Hardest of Hearts, **by Florence and the Machine._

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><p><strong><span>Smell<span> : **

"You're dead to me," she whispers. "You're dead to me. _You never existed_."

She is shaking, with fury and betrayal and . . .

"Hurt? Admit it. You're hurt." Andromeda is laughing, the way only she can. "What have you got to lose?" she challenges. "It's just us here, and _I hurt you. _I fooled you. Just admit it."

Bella scowls, grinding her teeth. "You're wrong," she manages at last.

This isn't a game. Andromeda doesn't play games. She's the only one who plays games, and she _always _wins.

Andromeda only laughs, the soft one, the one that means _oh, Bella. _She tilts her sister's chin up, and smiles sadly.

"I'm not," she whispers. "You just don't know it yet."

Bellatrix awakes with a scream.

Cissy is by her side immediately, blathering on about letting-her-sleep and don't-be-angry, but when she leans over, Bella blanches. She leaps up in an instant and seizes her little sister by the hair.

"_Take it off," _she hisses.

"W-what?"

"_Take off her perfume!" _This time it is a scream, and it serves its purpose. Cissy runs from the room, and Bella throws the windows open as wide as they will go, breathing in until she feels ill, until she thinks her frenzied gulps may have pulled a muscle . . . until it hurts.

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><p><strong>Touch<strong>** :**

She is woken by a lash of pain. She does not cry out, but she gasps in shock and struggles upright, a hand flying to her cheek.

"You were asleep, Bella," a cold voice chides, and she shivers, expecting punishment, admonishment . . .

Her master moves into the light, looking down at her with his head tilted to one side, his expression unreadable.

She shivers at his touch, fighting a shudder of violent delight as his fingers trace the mark upon her face, the hot blood rushing to her cheek.

She wonders if it pleases him. (She hopes it pleases him.) Perhaps he can gauge its purity by temperature alone, perhaps . . .

She kisses the palm of his hand, her face aflame, and he laughs.

"You're raving, Bella," he tells her, and she nods as the world spins oddly. (What hurts? Why? She's sure she knows . . .)

"Am I beautiful?" she mumbles.

Her master surveys her.

He takes in her dishevelled form, her bloody lips and clammy forehead, and he smiles.

When he removes his hand, she falls at his feet, dizzy, and her laughter bubbles up to match his own.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Sound<span> : **

"_Enervate!" _she screams. _"Enervate!" _

The spells slam into his chest, impacting just above his heart. His body jumps with every blow, but he affords her no more reaction than that – his eyes do not open, and his head still lolls grotesquely on one shoulder.

Bellatrix is furious, boiling with the sort of wrath she thinks only she knows. She'd hit him too, if she could get close enough, but there is someone holding her back. Rabastan, she thinks. His voice is ragged in her ear, as he tries to force the wand from her hand. Above her own shrieks - _"How dare you? I hate you! Enervate! Enervate! Die!" - _she picks out the odd word of his, mostly "Stop!" and _"Black!" _and one or two that might be "mad" and "bitch".

And then a final, furious spell hits his brother in the chest, and Rabastan's hands slip from her shoulders. For a moment she rants alone, revelling in it, and then she notices.

Rodolphus shudders and coughs, blood flecking the front of his robes.

Rabastan falls to his knees, shaking, and Bella is left unrestrained, feeling curiously numb.

"Lestrange," she whispers, shocked.

It isn't until Rabastan starts to shout that she registers the sound of her own laughter, rising in her ears like a tide.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Taste<span> :**

Bella pokes at the wedding cake with the tip of her knife, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Sugar and cream and sticky, sickly sweetness. She can almost imagine Cissy would taste like this, cut open.

"I don't forgive you."

"I never asked you to," Bella snaps, and her sister flinches.

"Fine. Have it your way, you always do."

Bella snorts.

"Enjoy the reception," Cissy snaps, and then she is gone.

Bella waits a little while longer, considering, and then she follows.

She finds them in the house, in one of the many ridiculous rooms that have no real purpose. This one contains what looks like the bones of an organ (what, was he planning to play her the wedding march?) and some antique chairs, all of which hide her nicely from view.

He's kissing her sister, pinned to the wall, and Bella recognizes the hunger in it, and the need.

_Probably relieved she didn't change her mind, _she thinks, weighing the knife in her hand.

This isn't how it is supposed to happen. Malfoy isn't supposed to fall in love and get his happy ending. The little leech is just as bad as her, in his own slimey way. Cissy isn't supposed to love him back. She's supposed to marry someone safe and dull and ever so appropriate, and approve of things she doesn't really understand.

"I'm sorry," Malfoy mutters.

Bella rolls her eyes, still hidden, and runs her finger down the blade.

Cissy sighs. "Lucius, I _know." _

Bellatrix licks the knife clean, scowling at the sweetness that sticks to her tongue. Apparently there's nothing Malfoy can't weasel his way out of.

Cissy pulls him into a kiss. He, of course, submits. (_Weak.)_

Bella steps closer, unseen, her grip tightening on the blade as his hands tangle in Cissy's hair, tighten against her waist . . .

"I love you," he says hoarsely, and the cake turns cloying on her tongue.

She wonders how they can stand the taste.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Sight<span> : **

She finds herself staying at Cissy's. She isn't quite sure how this came about, but it has. Cissy is her sister, and surely the first logical place to look for her, but no-one seems to worry about that. How wonderful for Lucius, that his control over the Ministry is so strong he has earned even this arrogance!

She smirks. Of course. He would believe that. He probably does. She can almost see it when she's near him, the pride straining beneath his skin, bursting to be free. Lucius was never built for humble, and he is far too quick to forget.

_Go on, _she thinks. _Go on . . . gloat. Revel in it. This is your victory, is it not, Lucius? You earned this, with your lies and your fraud and your **denial **(oh why doesn't he burn at the thought of it, how didn't his skin crawl, how did he stand it, all those years without a master . . . ._

"Bella?"

Of course, he doesn't see that none of this would be possible without his master. He dares – he _dares – _count her presence a victory, when his master resides under his roof?

And what a roof it is, at that. _Someone's done well . .. eh, Lucius? Peacocks? Disgusting. And some sort of hounds, and silver, and baubles and trinkets for Cissy, no doubt, and books, and – complacency. Yes, complacency. _

Her finger hovers over a silver-plated photo frame. Lucius stares out at her. Stiff, pale, solemn – he never changes.

"I know you," she hisses. _"I - know – you."_

Nervous laughter bubbles in her ears, and she blinks.

"Oh, you recognized him!" Cissy's smile seems stitched on – and the stitches are tearing at the seams, at that. She's happy, because Cissy, of course, is the _hostess_. And a hostess has duties, even to her own mad sister.

_Well, _Bella thinks smugly. _I'm not mad - just because you were temporarily beneath my notice. That's all. You're not important. I know all about you – I know all about this house, and all about you. You're lucky I feel merciful. I know everything. I see **everything. **_

"Of course I recognized him," she smirks, playing along, because this is fun, cat and mouse, round and round . . .

Cissy's smile is strained with hope. She takes the picture – kisses her fingertips, presses them to the glass – and replaces it on the mantel.

"He'll be back for the holidays," she fondly.

"What?"

Bella stares at her, and Cissy gives an edgy laugh.

"Draco," she says. "He'll be back for the holidays."

Bella stares anew at the picture – at the haughty young man with nothing of Cissy about him, at the _baby_ – and fourteen years fall fast upon her head.


End file.
